Drainage

[Mark_Fine]

The importance of proper drainage has been discussed on this site many times. Golfers don’t see it because most of it is under ground and it is sometimes hard for courses/clubs to swallow the costs but it is well worth every dollar if done right.  We just dealt with topical storm Isaias in the Northeast and all the golf courses we added drainage to fared very well (6” plus of rain fell in just several hours).  Two of the courses would not have been playable for days in the past and both opened the day after the storm even with carts.  My home course Lehigh CC unfortunately still has nine holes closed but when you have two foot in diameter trees wash up on two of your greens where the creek overflowed it’s banks there is not much you can do.  Still nothing more important on a golf course than good drainage.  Don’t ever vote against it 😊

[Jeff Schley]

Mark

True it is like the offensive line in football, nobody notices them until something goes wrong. Drainage is the same way working in the background to ensure it isn't noticed. Back in the 00's Jack Nicklaus was giving an interview at Bear Creek CC in California and someone asked him what is the most important quality for the success of a golf course.  He said (quite surprisingly to me)......DRAINAGE!

[Jeff_Brauer]

Mark,


Yes, I wasn't too offended when Brad Klein wrote that I was "a drainage nerd."  Not the nicest thing ever written about me, but far from the worst.


I agree with you, having done many drainage only (or mostly) projects over the years.  People always seem amazed that the newly remodeled course drains so well, as if water runs downhill is a new concept, LOL.


It has helped me business wise a few times.  Once, a group from out of state visited several courses in DFW by varying architects under consideration and it happened on a rainy day, a slow, soaking rain.  After seeing two other courses, they got to mine after several hours of light rain.  When I introduced them to the pro and they asked how many tee times they lost that day, he looked puzzled and answered "none."  I could tell from the looks on their faces that I had won the job right then and there.

[Tommy Williamsen]

When I was interviewing candidates for the superintendent's job at the resort where I live, I showed them the course and places where drainage was an issue. The super we hired discovered that many of the drains were in place, but were clogged with dirt etc. His first job was to clean out the drains and add some drainage where it was a problem.

[Jeff_Brauer]

Tommy,


Should have asked the previous super, and the new one if he understood the concept of "self cleansing velocity."  So many pipes are laid too flat, thereby causing the problem themselves.  For that matter, many in house drainage projects lay pipe too shallow and without enough grade because they tailor those to existing in house equipment, which is often sort of a pop gun in the construction world.

[Thomas Dai]

Would it be fair to say that apart from by those ‘in the business’, the most unappreciated aspect within golf is drainage?
Atb

[Mike Nuzzo]

But golfers do see it. One of the ubiquitous quotes on GCA:
“Pete Dye once told me that 95% of the job is making drainage look good, and there’s a lot of truth to that.” – Tom Doak
This is the intent of a good routing and minimalism. Take an interesting site that presently drains well and route the golf with the interesting bits as features. Make sure someone like Don Mahaffey is leading the charge and add as little pipe as possible.


Post some pictures of your work so we can see.

[Tommy Williamsen]

Tommy,


Should have asked the previous super, and the new one if he understood the concept of "self cleansing velocity."  So many pipes are laid too flat, thereby causing the problem themselves.  For that matter, many in house drainage projects lay pipe too shallow and without enough grade because they tailor those to existing in house equipment, which is often sort of a pop gun in the construction world.

Real good point. In a few of the places the slope in the drains is minimal.

[Sean_A]

Does anybody think drainage isn't critical to the succes of a good course? Drainage is one of the biggest differences between the Castle Course and the other Links Trust courses.

Ciao

[Thomas Dai]

But golfers do see it. One of the ubiquitous quotes on GCA:
“Pete Dye once told me that 95% of the job is making drainage look good, and there’s a lot of truth to that.” – Tom Doak

I appreciate what's been said here but am not convinced that most golfers do do see it, rather they only see it when it goes wrong ... not just storms and the like, just general wetness.
atb

[Duncan Cheslett]

Most of the courses I play were built 100 years or more ago with clay drains. While clubs intermittently add new drains where necessary the old pot drains still do most of the heavy lifting. Renewing the entire drainage system is a financial impossibility for the vast majority of golf clubs.


From my experience there are two main culprits for the failure of the old drains. Tree roots and compaction.


The obsession in the 1970s to 1990s  with lining every fairway and framing every green with trees has caused havoc with previously perfectly functional old drainage systems. I've lost count of the number of of old pot drains I have seen dug up completely clogged with tree roots.


At Cavendish we are in a very wet part of the world with fairly heavy moorland soil. We have long had the reputation of being a soggy course - particularly in winter. Or new Course Manager took extensive core samples from around the course and found that while the surface 2" was indeed very wet, below that the soil was almost powder. There was nothing wrong with the drainage laid in the 1920s - the water just wasn't reaching it!


Extensive linear aeration last autumn using an "Earthquake" machine on all fairways has resolved the issue almost completely. From being a "wet" course, Cavendish is now one of the driest inland courses in the north of England. In a very wet February it was appreciably drier than the sand-based Delamere Forest  and Conwy.

[Mark_Fine]

Mike,
I haven’t posted photos in a long time and do need to learn how to do it.  Joe Bausch however posted photos of every hole at one of my recent projects at Bethlehem GC on the Bethlehem thread so you could look there as one example.  The only “drainage” feature you will be able to see/notice is the swale on #1 and the end/exit of a long pipe on the right side of the fairway.   That pipe was added under a long section of the golf course and it picks up and carries water across five or so holes.  Many courses these days have had infrastructure build up all around them and they end up acting as catch basins for local runoff.  That drainage work we did has made a dramatic difference in the playing conditions and quality of the turf. We also did extensive grading and drainage on many other holes there including 7, 8, 9, 10, 12, 15, 18. 


The reason I say most golfers don’t see drainage is because if it is done well you really shouldn’t see it.  Most is pipe under the ground and good grading.  It should look natural.  A pet peeve of mine is catch basins all over the place especially around greens and in fairways.  Sometimes they can’t be avoided but proper grading/surface drainage can eliminate most of them.  Same goes for bunker drainage.  Most golfers don’t have a clue what is under the sand.  A dry bunker is usually a good bunker and that is all about proper construction and installing proper drainage.

[Mark_Fine]

Duncan,
You are correct about the clay drainage on many of the older courses.  Some still function well (amazing) but some are clogged as you say or choked by tree roots but also many have been crushed over time and need to be replaced.  Surface drainage was paramount back then as clay tile was expensive to lay.  Unfortunately some clubs do have to replace it which is why I was saying it can be a hard cost for them to bare because it is underground and golfers don't see it. They will see if bunkers are renovated or if trees come down or if new cart paths go in but they usually don't see drainage.  They just think the super is finally doing a better job maintaining the golf course because it is much more playable after heavy rains, the bunkers don't wash out as often and the turf is better,...The super may be doing a better job but the new drainage is a big part of the answer.  I wish I could post photos as I could show some old clay tiles that collapsed at an old Tillinghast course that we worked on in NJ called Suneagles.  New drainage solved a lot of issues. 

[Jon Wiggett]

I have said this on several occasions in the past. With drainage the most important way to keep them working long term is to put them in as deep as possible. 4 foot minimum but preferably 6 foot foot the main runs. If put in at this depth then there is no reason why it will not function for several hundred years. The biggest problem with most modern drainage is it is far too shallow.


After that it is as Duncan says countering compaction. There is a lazy tendency for wet courses to blame it on clay soils when in reality if the soil profile is settled and the drainage/aeration done properly it will drain quite adequately.

[Mark_Fine]

Jon,
I agree with you but clay soils do present a real drainage challenge.  When clay dries out it can be like a brick and water does not permenate through it to reach the drain tile. It can be a real problem. Oakmont has all those famous ditches not because Fownes wanted them as hazards but because he needed them to drain all the water running off the golf course and the hard clay soil surfaces.  The Castle Course at St. Andrews has the same challenge, poor soils.  That land was a flat potato field not sandy soils like on the Old Course. 

[Jeff Schley]

Mark / Jon or Don Mahaffey / Jeff Brauer

• Is sand capping cheating?
• Is it like taking steroids for athletes that want to perform better and takes the art out of drainage?
• Or do you view it as a necessary technological evolution that if financially feasible should be done to improve drainage and provide firmer and faster conditions?
• Found this nice article from our very own Jeff Brauer "enter sandman". Is there a range of agreeable depth of the sand capping or does it depend on site/budget? https://www.golfcourseindustry.com/article/gci1213-sand-capping-fairways/

Without sand capping, for clay soils is it true most fairway main drainage now is on the the fairway as opposed to a herringbone down the middle as we have seen previously? Any reason for that?
For secondary drainage:

• what are the preferred methods nowadays?
• Sand slitting, gravel banding?
• Also preferred aggregate?
• Opinions on Lytag as an aggregate?

Thank you.

[Lou_Duran]

I lived in northwest Ohio for nearly 16 years where the corn grows bountifully, but not without considerable effort and preparation.  Many hours of grueling, back-breaking work following a large trencher while laying tile in the fields gave me a special appreciation for the importance of drainage.


But it wasn't until I moved to Texas where we get both quick, heavy downpours and long periods of slow but steady rain that I developed an appreciation for the ability of moving and draining water.  We have a number of courses in the Dallas area that have had extensive work done over the last 30+ years to alleviate shortcomings in original construction and the changing character of surrounding landscapes due to development.


Jeff Brauer and his one time associate John Colligan have typically gotten most things right in their original work.  Whatever their courses may lack in "artistry" and exclusivity that seem to drive rankings, they more than make up in challenge, playability (drainage component included here), and fun.  It is one of their competitive advantages, and a pretty big one.


From most members' perspective, my home course drains well.  With continuous concrete cart paths, only flood events blocking bridges and a few low areas, the course is nearly always open for play.  Some of our bunkers hold water for days, but that is probably as much of a deferred maintenance issue as the typical corners cut during original construction (an architect once confided that due to budget constraints and principals' demands for aesthetic bunkering, most will need to redo the bunkers within five years of opening).


One aspect of drainage doesn't receive enough attention perhaps because it is also linked to irrigation, a system that now can run well over $1 Million to install new.   My home course has a great abundance of catch basins on every hole, many in playing areas that remain soft, gather balls, and become divot fields.  Coupled with soft, often wet entries to most of our built-up greens, the variety of shots is limited to the aerial game.


Our irrigation system has nearly 1900 heads keeping one to two full time guys working on nothing but repairing the system and replacing heads.  It is a losing battle and results in some areas receiving excessive water to get enough to other parts of the course.  How to marry irrigation, drainage, and the required ongoing maintenance is no easy thing, but unless done reasonably well, many of the neat architectural features of the course can go unnoticed. 

[Jon Wiggett]

Jon,
I agree with you but clay soils do present a real drainage challenge.  When clay dries out it can be like a brick and water does not permenate through it to reach the drain tile. It can be a real problem. Oakmont has all those famous ditches not because Fownes wanted them as hazards but because he needed them to drain all the water running off the golf course and the hard clay soil surfaces.  The Castle Course at St. Andrews has the same challenge, poor soils.  That land was a flat potato field not sandy soils like on the Old Course.

Mark,


the problem that most clay based courses have is the soil profile does not have a good moisture/air makeup. Normally once you get down to a foot below the surface it is either saturated or completely devoid of water but it does not have to be so. With deep enough drainage and a good aeration programme clay soils can drain relatively quickly.


With the ditches you mention at Oakmont how many of them are shallower than three feet? Ditches may not be loved by many golfers but they are usually kept functioning by the golf operator where many piped drains are not.


Sand capping is not really a solution and can have all sorts of nasty side effect.


Lou,


a very insightful bit of writing. Bravo 


One thing I have never understood about courses and their huge irrigation systems is why spend so much money when for less you can have two guys with snap on couplings doing a far more precise job giving a better result.

[Mark_Fine]

Jeff,
I am not a big advocate of sand capping.  There are pros and cons to everything and quite a bit of research has been done on the topic.  The process can be extremely expensive as well.  I have always thought of it more as a bandaid.  I believe the growing consensus is that capping fairways with say 6-8" of sand can cause as many turf issues as it solves.  Sometimes less is more. 


Fairway drainage patterns vary but most are still some version of herringbone at least that is what we use.  Depending on the situation we run a main line and various laterals off of it to the areas in need.  I work on existing courses so we are often tapping into what is there and/or adding new drainage to areas where the current drainage has failed or where there was none there to begin with. 


Those ditches at Oakmont vary in depth (I can't tell you how many are more than three feet) but some are quite deep (sadly I have been in them more than I would like) 

[Thomas Dai]

One venue I’d like to view is the Jockey Club to see with my own eyes how MacKenzie/Koontz drained the apparently very flat and damp site and used the spoil to build the various 36-hole course features.
Atb

[Jeff_Brauer]

Mark / Jon or Don Mahaffey / Jeff Brauer

• Is sand capping cheating?
• Is it like taking steroids for athletes that want to perform better and takes the art out of drainage?
• Or do you view it as a necessary technological evolution that if financially feasible should be done to improve drainage and provide firmer and faster conditions?
• Found this nice article from our very own Jeff Brauer "enter sandman". Is there a range of agreeable depth of the sand capping or does it depend on site/budget? https://www.golfcourseindustry.com/article/gci1213-sand-capping-fairways/

Without sand capping, for clay soils is it true most fairway main drainage now is on the the fairway as opposed to a herringbone down the middle as we have seen previously? Any reason for that?
For secondary drainage:

• what are the preferred methods nowadays?
• Sand slitting, gravel banding?
• Also preferred aggregate?
• Opinions on Lytag as an aggregate?

Thank you.

Not really.  If you have no soil on site, it may be necessary, and sand works better than topsoil.  Also, really all you do is move the drainage issue down 6-9" depth of the sand.  You still need subsurface drainage below that.  And, sometimes, the cap blocks drainage on the uphill side and you really need to be aware of, and take care of, that.  BTW, you also need to figure out if you want to cut in a dish, like a USGA green, or feather out the sand more like a tee.  Feathering out takes a lot more sand.

And, if you don't pay attention to your proposed sands "water release curve" you can inadvertently build a sloppy mess, still on the surface.  Engineering the drainage with a sand cap is no less artful or difficult than without.  I agree with Mark's conclusions on this one.  Also, you have to remember to cap off any old drain lines not being used and connected into the new system. 

The preferred method?  Another cliche is that you take care of surface drainage problems on the surface, i.e., 2+% pitch to catch basins and solid pipes, and subsurface drainage with perforated subsurface drainage, like sand slits and/or french drains.  The top of the trench needs to be permeable, i.e., a few inches of sand then gravel, for any surface drainage that happens to flow by.  But, it is susceptible to thatch, clogging, roots, etc. and they become slowly less reliable over time.

You hate catch basins, so you downsize them to make them less noticeable?  Very often, catch basin size is what limits drainage system capacity, so I don't recommend it.  Make them big enough that reduced capacity from grass clippings, partial turf cover if not trimmed regularly, etc. can still handle the needed water.  If you calculate pipe size, using an engineering formula, and it says you need a 10" pipe to carry the water draining into the basin, you need a 10" catch basin for that pipe to run full.

I mentioned self cleansing velocity, and it is 3 feet/second.  Now, sanitary sewers can run at 2 feet/second, which I don't understand, because it would seem their sludge wouldn't budge.  Maybe the drainage mfgs just like a nice safety factor, but I don't risk it, and sometimes, on flat sites, the size of the drain pipes is driven by the minimum possible grade.  A 15" pipe can be laid flatter than an 8" pipe.  I use the simple formula of 6/pipe diameter (i.e., 6" pipes can run at 1% and clean them selves out)

Lastly, the depth of sand cap varies by the sand characteristics, or the "water release curve."  At La Costa, we had two potential sands.  As it turned out, the more expensive one released water completely in 4" depth, and the cheaper on released only at 6-7" depth, so the expensive sand was cheaper.

And, as Forrest Gump might say, that's all I have to say about that!

[Don Mahaffey]

Jeff's comment on the water release curve are spot on. I am amazed at how many in our business ignore this. Someone wants a sand cap in the approaches, they know they will be harvesting old greens mix, and they will see how far that can stretch what they harvest by  capping at 4" depth with the same type of drainage plan you'd use to drain a green with a 12" thick sand plating.  Then they wonder why the approaches act more like a sponge that will not dry out and start blaming the contractor or the supt for over watering. Sand holds on to water like all soils, only not nearly as tightly as finer soils. But when you buy cheap sand that is fine and has high silt/clay and plate it at a depth where the soil tension holds onto the water tighter than the forces of gravity and haven't plated it deep enough for the weight of the water to break that tension, then your sand cap is now a hydroponic algae field.  Happens way, way, way more than people think and its still happening. It amazes me.


I like what Lou said - something along a holistic approach where the shaping (surface drainage), irrigation plan (control) soils, grass type, and expectations are all factored into creating an agronomic plan that has all those items in the proper ratio for highest possible functionality. Seems basic and simple until you get an alphabet soup of consultant specialists who all think their facet is what natters most (especially is they sell the products they spec)


I'll take an Old Tom approach every day and twice on Sunday before sitting in endless meetings with all the specialists jockeying for position.

[Jeff_Brauer]

Don,


It often works out.  We typically reuse old mix on tees, but every once in a while, the tees weep out the side, etc., probably a result o of the water release curve. 


Another problem, as you and Lou mention is that part to part circle sprinklers around the green all set at 90 degrees in and out tend to have wet spots out front, as 2 or more reverse points, with a slight delay, end up watering the approach.  A simple fix is to adjust those to water 100-120 degrees to avoid that small bit of extra water, a surprisingly effective and simple solution, with, as you say, not a lot of extra consulting necessary.  Yet, every time I mention this to a superintendent or irrigation designer it seems like news to them.


My simple solution is to have the green approach drain at least 4%, and in most cases, have more of the green drain out to the side rather than front, but that's just me.

[Mark Studer]

Laurel Valley in Ligonier PA has just done a MAJOR drainage project.  It has made the course play the best it has in 40 years.   The new super, Brett Bentley, came to Laurel Valley via Pikewood and Oakmont.  The club leadership and team should be congratulated for maybe the best wet and gloppy conversion to Firm and Fast.....EVER?  Over 60 years ago,  Dick Wilson built the course in the "Valley" between Chestnut Ridge and Laurel Mountain and it was perennially sloppy and slow but always beautiful to look at from all angles.  Now it tests all your talents and looks better than ever too.  They used a series of sump pumps in the lowest areas to move the water to higher holding ponds.  I believe that they have some more work to do this off season and if you get a chance to see the spectacular improvements, do it.

[Mike_Young]

The biggest key to great drainage is routing.  Pipe should be a last resort.  But it seems people so often associate drainage to pipe.  for example grassy hollows with an open side drain much better than hollows with catch basins...I did a course in ATL a few years back where the cost of pipe was Hancor HDP pipe was over 2 mill before labor.  The owner had pissed off an inspector and each hole had to be able to measure runoff into the lake.  No water could move from fairway to fairway and it did not begin this way.  "Divot gathering" areas are a huge problem but it drains...and I now despise pipe..JMO